Story Of An Hour
by Cookie-Stories
Summary: Mid-Breaking Dawn. Charlie is told that Bella is very sick, and he suspects the worse of it. Feeling down and low, he realizes many things about himself and Sue, that she wasn't so simple. He also realizes something he locked up years ago. -one shot


I slumped against the wall of the house, the rain trickling down my face slowly and it covered up the warm tears that were rolling down my cheeks. Out in the rain, I laid, like a piece of junk, someone who had lost almost everything. It felt just like being waited to be picked up by some person passing by. What mattered now? There was only a slight glimmer of hope that my daughter was actually alive and breathing painfully somewhere on the outskirts of Forks. All the while after I gave Renée up foolishly I swore to myself that I would give the best care to whatever and wherever we left off, and that was the only thing that kept me sane enough and sturdy enough to take care of her like a father. I braced myself for eighteen, knowing that she would marry and move in with her boyfriend, leaving me, yet again, alone. I thought I was ready, and believe me I kind of was, until I heard that she was dying. It threw me off guard. When the one that was dying was my closest memory to Renée, it was something I would shove my need to know policy to a side just to know if she was alright. I needed the chocolate eyes of my daughter, alive and reassuring. It was the only thing I wanted to see, for a last time. Was that too much to ask?

I sat there without an idea on how I was going to cope with losing my daughter, and a whole part of my life. How leaving Renée was what I thought was my greatest regret, now it felt like it came second. The thing I regretted most now was how I could not keep my own daughter safe around me. Was it that I did not take in enough moments I had with her father-to-daughter that I felt regret? Or was it because I just wanted more time? Time... There was so much time in a lifetime, but never enough for anyone to cherish. How ironic, when we had so much time, that it seemed like forever, but it was actually just that short. One lifetime.

The shrill ring of my cell phone in my pocket sirened in my ears, pulling my daunting thoughts to a pause. I could feel how a part of me wished and hoped that the call would make me feel a tad better, and another hoping that it was a call from Carlisle to tell me Bella was okay and recovering. Willing myself to answer the call, I reached for my phone.

"Hey, Charlie..." Billy murmured through the phone. I kept silent, not really wanting to talk. "Uhh... So, I heard." That dragged me down into my daunting thoughts again.

"Heard what?" I muttered with a flat, morose voice.

"About... Bella." He hesitated.

"Bella." I sighed.

"Just... Stay strong, okay? For your daughter."

"Yeah, thanks." The line cut off right after that.

Funny, I thought with a bleak smile, how I had to stay strong for Bella when she was dying. Would my will be any help to her recovery? No. Why stay strong when all I wanted to do was to mourn, let everything out and prepare myself for the worst when it came? I heard a car pull over right behind the cruiser, the handle clicking, and gentle footsteps approaching me. I felt a certain kind of warmth, after being out in the rain and turning into the trepidation I felt for the whole evening, when the footsteps stopped right beside me and offered a hand.

"Don't get yourself sick Charlie. Go inside." Sue whispered, wriggling her hand into mine to pull me to my feet.

Standing up and out of the rain was what I really did not want to do. The rain somehow repressed what I felt about the implacable truth. If it was already that bad, would it be worse without the numb? I felt her settle herself beside me as my head hung between my knees. I bit my lip tightly, feeling like my teeth were about to bite through the flesh on my lower lip.

"You know, I just hate how I've just been letting everything through me because I've been making the wrong choices. And I just hate how I can't change that at all." I mumbled. I felt her eyes on me as she rubbed my back gently.

"It's not your fault that you can't control it." She reasoned, keeping her voice calmly soothing and warm like honey. It felt like it had been ages since I had heard such an even voice out of all the hectic.

"I left my wife foolishly, and I can't bring that back. Then the closest thing to her came in my hands, and I still can't protect her. I can't bring her back with the position I'm in. I'm no god, so-" Agitation came to the better of me as I rambled about everything, my throat feeling thick. "Ugh. What am I supposed to do..."

"You see, Charlie, sometimes things aren't so simple. Sometimes, you just can't control the outcome. Sometimes you have to look at the reality in front of you, and just accept it as it is because there's nothing you can do in your place to change it." Sue took my hand in hers, sighing as tears gathered in her eyes. "That's the way I coped." Her gaze dropped to the floor where the rain drops that trickled made a pattern.

"Sorry, I had to bring that up."

"Don't apologize for telling the truth. It's like saying that you're sorry for being real." She chuckled above her quiet sobs. I looked down at her and she smiled, wiping off the tears that smeared under her eyes. Something about her teary eyes made me feel somehow obliged to let her cry everything out, and just be strong for her, and only her.

"What's wrong?" The question bubbled from my chest.

"It's funny..." She shook her head with an anguished titter. "How I came here with the purpose of making you feel better, but now I'm the one needing the cheering up."

I moved the strands of hair that were stuck on her damp face and she rested her head on my shoulder, stifling her sobs in my shirt. I rested my head on hers as she invitingly laced her arms around me. Now that made two of us, problematic and lost for what to do with our lives. At least we had each other to fall on, how we were sparingly close. I waited, until she had sobbed away what she had to, and she started to speak.

"You know how I said I coped? Harry wasn't the only thing I had to cope with." She hesitated. There were surely secrets beyond that thin voice.

"U-huh." I nodded.

"And how I said we were in the same situation?" I started to think, and the number of possibilities on how she would be standing the same ground as me grew by the seconds without an end. Then it came to the worst, that Leah and Seth had gotten what Bella had. I winced slightly with a shudder, willing myself to push the thought away.

"Did Seth and Leah get the sickness too? Is it bad?"

"Not exactly, Charlie. Everyday I'm put into a spot, having to fret over losing my husband and my children. After Harry... died, I had nobody else to seek any reassurances from."

"What happened? Couldn't you find Billy?"

"Some things aren't in our control either. Behind the reason why I fear having to lose my kids at any moment in their lives and mine, is something that isn't mine to tell. It's like life and death, and telling it could put all that I have on the line. I can't risk losing what's left of me, and I wish they had a choice too." Like how Bella didn't have a choice on living or dying.

"They were forced?"

"Remember how I said that sometimes things weren't that simple? Behind the charade would be a complexity so vast and deadly, it scares me too. It hurts having to know."

"And you really can't tell?"

"I don't want to risk everything." She sighed, like she wished that she could.

"And what's everything that you don't want to risk?" I saw a tinge of red flush in her pale russet cheeks as her eyes dropped to the floor and she smiled again.

Her smile was like a warmth, a sun, and a path of light. I realized how she plugged up most of the grief I felt - of course, I still did feel grief - and she gave me a stronger ground to hope for the better. Around her, Hope miraculously did not fall through and crumble into pieces around me. The glow of the glimmering hope seemed brighter and stronger.

Then I felt this feeling in my stomach, like a nervous twist as my heart thumped. The feeling had been distant for a long time, and now seemed foreign to me, but it was coming back. I did not know what it meant exactly, or how it really worked because the last time it ended up in loss. Ever since then I never really wanted to relive the way it felt again. All the while I never noticed how all these things came back around her, but when I started to I didn't want to stop. Like breathing, I couldn't.

For once, after years, I let myself lose the protectiveness and control of myself. All the pent up control had just collapsed. I felt my lips press against hers, and she never pulled back. Her lips moved with mine. In that moment, the pieces fell into place perfectly. There was nothing to correct the flawless seconds of the lingering kiss that rested gently on our lips. The questions started to surface from beneath my memories, where the sorrow was safe-kept. Would I treat her right? Was I good enough for her? Was I ready, knowing what happened the last time?

"You." She leaned back into my shoulder.

"But... I don't know if-"

"We only have this short to live, might as well make our lives right before we're only left to regret." She whispered. "Anyway, thank you."

"For what?" I asked, slightly amused.

"Just... Thank you."


End file.
